Angel's Attire
by mcfuz
Summary: Cas had never really believed in love at first sight, but this? This is something different. / Cas works in a costume store, Dean and Charlie need some LARPing costumes, and the Little Mermaid plays matchmaker. Destiel AU.
1. Angel's Attire

**Angel's Attire**

* * *

The bell trills from the front of the store, jolting Cas upright from where he had been gradually dozing off amongst the piles of tulle and chain mail in the back room. He scrambles to his feet, straightens his backwards tie, and makes his way over to the counter, trying not to trip up on any other debris Gabriel left floating around. He only barely succeeds, managing to save himself from an unsightly tumble into a mountain of cowboy hats, and glances up to see if his customers have been sufficiently weirded out yet.

There're two of them inside the store, and they aren't even looking at Cas, for which he is eternally grateful. The girl with the red hair lets out a snort of laughter at something her companion - boyfriend, Cas assesses, noting the proximity in which they stand together - murmurs in her ear. Cas flattens down (or attempts to) his hair and clears his throat softly. The boyfriend starts a little, then does a half-turn and catches Cas' eye.

Cas' lungs seem to suddenly decide to stop working. His heart, too, jitters to a halt in its cage of ribs.

He thinks of himself as the fairly experienced traveller; he's been to Europe, after all, and the rolling hills and fields of Austria in particular struck a chord deep inside him. He thought he'd never see anything so beautiful, so green, as those meadows and mountains had been.

How wrong he turns out to be.

It's the boyfriend's eyes that catch his breath the most. They're a sparkling, glowing, technicolour green worth drowning in. If Cas had any questions as to his sexuality before, they're thrown out the window now as one look from those magnetic eyes burns him up in all the wrong (right) places.

He shifts his weight form one foot to the other, glad he has the security of the counter to hide the tented bulge in his trousers. "May I help you?" he manages to say, hoping his voice isn't too strangled with desire. Perhaps he wasn't quite successful, because the boyfriend's eyes widen momentarily, and the force of that gaze pressing down on Cas almost undoes him right then and there, but then the girl turns around too and smiles at him, and he feels so crushingly guilty he's able to regain some semblance of control.

"Yes, thanks!" she says cheerily, her ponytail bouncing behind her. She navigates her way around the weapons display and the rack of princess dresses towards the counter. "We were wondering if you had any sort of chain mail, maybe gauntlets and braces too, you know, sort of Camelot-era style?" She tilts her head to the side and scrutinises Cas in a way he's not really sure he's overly fond of.

"Oh, yes, of course we do," he finds himself responding. "Any sort of armour is around the back, so if you would care to follow me…?" He turns, making sure no embarrassing protrusions remain, and walks back into the storage room from where he'd been woken so unceremoniously only minutes ago. He feels slightly self-conscious of the mess here - he shouldn't, since it's not really his store anyway, and nothing he says will make Gabe change his messy habits - and tries to sweep some of the clutter to the side with his feet as he walks. The action only manages to unbalance him, however, and he is looking dangerously close to teetering into a pile of mermaid costumes (and if the coloured fins aren't bad enough, the shell bras are all tossed in there too, and he can absolutely imagine how this will turn out) until a strong hand reaches out to grasp his forearm and drag him backwards to safety. Cas almost dreads turning around, because he knows whose face will be there, and sure enough, the boyfriend is staring at him with a teasing smile on his lips, and God, Cas wants to kiss him again and again and again and then the boyfriend's letting go and is clearing his throat and Cas almost wants to turn and nosedive into the shell bras and stay buried there forever.

"Careful, now," is what the boyfriend says then, and if his eyes weren't bad enough, his voice is something Cas knows he won't forget in a hurry. "Don't want you getting lost in Ariel's hand-me-downs." Cas feels a blush rising, then, and turns away hurriedly before the boyfriend can notice. He shuffles over to where Gabriel's stock of armour and chain mail is haphazardly hung from mannequins and strewn about in clusters the size of small Mount Everests.

"Here we are," he says in a small voice, forcing his gaze past the boyfriend to rest on the girl instead, because she seems a little less of a threat to his self-control. She would seem that, that is, until Cas catches her calculating stare flicking between him and the boyfriend, and seven hells, he wishes the ground would just swallow him up.

"Thanks…Cas," the girl says, squinting at his nametag and smiling in a shit-eating way Cas doesn't trust one bit. "I'm Charlie, and this is Dean, by the way." When Cas shifts slightly at the mention of the boyfriend's - _Dean_'s - name, that grin of hers only widens. "We're sort-of friends with Gabriel. Well," she amends, after Dean's disgruntled look in her direction, "_I'm_ sort-of friends with him. Thought he'd be here, actually…"

"Oh," Cas says with a little relief. This is something he can talk about without looking like a total idiot. "He usually is, but he's gone on vacation, so he asked me to watch over the store while he's gone. I'm his brother."

"Pleased to meet you, then, Cas," Charlie smiles, genuinely this time. "Gabe has a great business here; I'd hate to see it close up just because he wasn't here to run it." She sidles around her boyfriend and Cas, assessing the array of costumes with a critical eye. "I'm thinking classic silver," she contemplates, "With some leather pants…and a skin vest, of course, and these boots," she concludes, grabbing a pair from the shelf. "Some gauntlets, too, and a belt. What d'you think, Dean-o?"

Dean shuffles forward then, brushing past Cas who tries not to breathe in but fails, and ends up inhaling the most amazing scent of leather, oil, wood shavings and apple pie. "I dunno," Dean says with a shrug as Cas tries to regain some semblance of propriety and _not_ swing Dean around wholeheartedly to kiss the fuck out of him in front of his girlfriend. "Whatever you like, I guess."

"I swear," Charlie says to Cas with a roll of her eyes, "I hate stereotypes, but even I have to admit Dean's the worst gay guy in the history of gay guys." She lets out a snort, similar to the one from before, laughing even harder at Dean's mumbled protests. Neither of them seems to notice Cas' choked sound, as he tries to process what Charlie just said. (_Gay?_ His mind is shouting. _Then what are you waiting for? Jump his bones!_) "Even Sam cares what he wears more than you!"

"I care what I wear!" Dean says indignantly. Cas' eyes, by now, must be as round as saucers.

"Oh, yeah, sure. Dean, you wear the same leather jacket and boots _every single day_. What am I meant to discern from that, hmm?"

"That I like my leather jacket and boots!"

"Sure, now that's a surprise -" Charlie breaks off suddenly, and turns to stare at Cas. He presses his lips together hurriedly, though by now it's too late; the squawk that had escaped from his mouth now hangs like an awkward noose between the three of them.

Dean breaks the silence. "Sorry, um, did you just _squawk_, man?"

"Uh…" Cas blinks owlishly for a moment. "Yes? I mean - I was just confused, I mean, I thought - I thought you two were, you know - I mean -"

"You thought Dean was my boyfriend?" Charlie cuts in, eyebrows raised.

"Um. Yes?"

Charlie and Dean look at each other, and for a split second Cas is almost afraid she was fucking with him, because _surely_ they're boyfriend and girlfriend, surely -

Charlie snorts again, and Dean lets out a loud bark of laughter, and suddenly the both of them are uncontrollably giggling in the back room of _Angel's Attire_, between armoured mannequins and a pile of sequined mermaid tails (not to mention the shell bras). Cas smiles uncertainly, feeling so far out of his depth it has gone past embarrassment and looped back around to amusement.

"Sorry," Charlie gasps out after a while, clutching at her stomach. "It's just - we're just friends, Cas, I mean - God, we're both gay! It's like, the most impossible impossibility!"

"Oh. Right. Sorry." Cas clears his throat. "Sorry," he says again, and his stupid eyes won't stop staring at Dean, and Dean is staring back, and Charlie just sort of fades into the background because Cas had never really believed in love at first sight, but this? This is something different. "Sorry," he repeats, unable to stop. "Sorry. I'm sorry, Dean."

"It's fine, man," Dean says finally, tearing his gaze away after an agonisingly long moment, but the tension remains. "I mean, I'm so out of Charlie's league that even if we weren't gay - _ow!_"

"A treasonous handmaiden gets what she deserves," Charlie sniffs haughtily. "I know your size already, Dean, so I'm just gonna grab all this shit and ring it up myself, 'kay? I've done it before, Cas, no biggie," she says quickly, heaving all her supplies into her arms. "You two crazy kids have a nice ol' chat, alright?" The last leather gauntlet is added to her pile, and she walks out quickly, but not before peering over the top of the pile and giving Cas a jaunty wink and nod of the head. And, oh God, Dean sees it too.

That pile of shell bras is looking very appealing at the moment.

"So," Dean says when they're alone. He looks about as awkward as Cas feels, which doesn't really make either of them feel better at all.

"I'm gay," Cas blurts out, and Dean's eyes flick up to his in surprise. "I mean - just, you know. In case you wanted to know." Dean raises an eyebrow. "I mean," Cas rushes on, "Not that you'd want to know, you know, just, like, an afterthought, maybe, or, I don't know, I mean, it's only fair, since Charlie told me you were, so, I mean -"

"Cas." Dean cuts off Cas' word vomit with an incredulous look. "It's fine, you don't have to, you know, explain the laws of physics to me."

Cas blinks. "I'm not."

Dean laughs shortly, trying to hide a smile. "I know, it's like, an expression, Cas, or whatever."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

The sound of the cash register opening slices through the thick air between them. Dean runs his hand along the hairs at the nape of his neck, and God, how much does Cas want to do the same?

"I should probably -" Dean begins, glancing furtively behind him towards the exit. Cas' heart plummets to somewhere around his ankles.

"Oh, yeah. Sure. I'll um -" He half-turns, meaning to squeeze past Dean and go out to Charlie, but then a hand grasps his forearm, the same hand that stopped him from drowning in a pile of glittery fins and scalloped shell bras, and he's turning, and Dean's so fucking close this time, and his eyes are even greener from this angle, greener than all the Austrian fields and German forests combined, so green they should be a colour all their own, and from here he can see the freckles too, can almost count them, if only there weren't so many, and Dean's leaning down and Cas is straining upwards and their lips meet for a single moment that slows down everything else in space and time and Cas is almost certain he's going to spontaneously combust from all this heat, but then Dean's hand releases his arm for just a second, and Cas hasn't really found his balance yet, and the kiss isn't really helping, and he's toppling sideways, dragging Dean with him, and suddenly they're smothered in shell bras and sequins and he _really_ should've gotten Gabe to sweep up this mess. Dean begins to laugh, then; not the full-throated one he shared with Charlie before, but a softer tone, sweeter, all of a sudden intensely private.

"Sorry," Dean murmurs against Cas' lips, plucking a shell bra from his shoulder and throwing it to the side. Cas is aware of their closeness: Dean is pressed almost down the length of him, smiling from above and it's so perfect he thinks he might burst.

"You know," a voice floats from over by the door, "This is cute and all, but if you wanted to do Ariel and Eric the right way, you could've at least let me be the mermaid." Dean grins and rolls off of Cas, glancing over at Charlie, whose arms are still full of his new armour.

"Maybe next time," he says cheerily, and Cas feels a little bubble of hope inside of him, because Dean said _next time_ and if that's not encouraging, he doesn't know what is.

Charlie laughs and wrinkles her nose. "God, I hope not," she says with such a suggestive tone that Cas feels himself turn bright red. "Anyway," she continues, "I've called a cab, so you're excused from your handmaiden duties for today, Dean, though I expect you at my house tomorrow for LARPing, 10 a.m. sharp. Ciao, boys." With a last saucy wink, she leaves, the tinkle of the bell at the door echoing behind her.

Cas is allowed a single second to catch his breath before Dean rolls towards him again, those hands callused by perhaps a rifle, or a wrench, burying themselves in the lapels of his trenchcoat and digging into his skin. "Now, where were we?" Dean whispers, his gaze blistering, and this time it's Cas who pulls the man to him, lips meeting lips, skin meeting skin, green eyes meeting blue eyes and not looking away for a long, long while.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Woohoo! Costume shop AU! Will possibly be turning this into a verse! Stay tuned! Have some matchmaker Charlie! What am I doing with my life!?


	2. Ray-Bans from Hell

**Ray-Bans from Hell**

* * *

Cas isn't invited to Dean and Charlie's LARPing game, for which he is immensely grateful. Not that he's against it, but the idea of so many people he doesn't know in one place, and his irrefutable tendency to trip over every object under the sun, makes him sure that if he did attend, it would be one of the more humiliating days of his life. He's content to wait out the afternoon in the comfort of _Angel's Attire_, trying (and failing) to put the store in some semblance of order for when Dean comes around this evening. Not that he's trying to impress him, or anything. Not at all.

The bell over the door trills whilst Cas is in the middle of stacking a collection of cowboy hats. He checks his watch – it's ten to five, so Dean must be a little early, as it can't be a customer since he closed up shop at four – and turns around, a smile forming on his face because even the sight of Dean is enough to fill him with a warm, cosy feeling inside –

Except it isn't Dean.

It isn't even Charlie.

Home three days early, sporting a healthy tan and Ray-Bans, is Gabriel.

Shit.

"Baby bro!" Gabe crows cross the empty store. He whips off his sunglasses and grins widely. "Surprise!"

"Gabriel," Cas says with as much enthusiasm as he can muster. This shouldn't be happening – Gabriel can't be here, _now_, not with Dean arriving in less than ten minutes to pick Cas up for their first official date. His reluctance to see his brother must shine through, because Gabe's smile disappears as quickly as it had come.

"Since you're clearly not pleased to see me, I assume that's a gun in your pocket," he says coolly, advancing towards Cas around a slightly neatened clothes rack of corsets. He brings a hand up to his heart and sighs dramatically. "I'm wounded."

"What are you doing here?" Cas winces; he didn't mean for the question to come out so harshly. He checks his watch; seven minutes.

Gabriel shrugs, looking around the store. "Thought I'd pop back early to make sure you hadn't burned down the place. Looks good, Cas."

"Thank you," Cas answers stiffly, keeping one eye on his brother and one on the street outside, both hoping for and dreading the appearance of a '67 black Chevy rounding the corner. "How was California?"

"How _wasn't _California, baby bro?" Gabe grins, animosity forgotten. Cas is relatively sure his brother's words don't make sense, but he lets the incorrect grammar slide. Six minutes.

"I take it you visited Kali there?"

"Not only visited," comes the reply, accompanied by a waggle of eyebrows. "We had a lot of catching up to do."

"I'm sure." Cas swallows. Gabriel can't be here – not now, not for this, not to meet Cas' first ever date and make absolutely sure it would be his last. "Don't you have somewhere to be?" he asks innocently, looking down at his watch again. Five to five.

Gabe narrows his eyes. "No," he says, shortly, the syllable rising up at the end with a curious tone. "Do _you_?"

"No," Cas answers automatically. Gabriel gives him a look. "Yes."

His brother laughs and walks closer, swinging an arm around Cas' shoulders and sighing in amusement. "Hot date?" he says mockingly, but when Cas blushes unwillingly, his jaw drops. "No way." He pushes back from Cas and steps in front of him, getting right up in his face. "No freaking way, Castiel. _A date_? With _who_?"

"I see no reason why I should share my private life with you –"

"Oh, come _on_, Castiel. I tell you everything about Kali –"

"Which I didn't ask for, thanks very much –"

"– just a name? When did you meet? What does he –?"

With the worst timing in the history of the world – no, the universe – Cas hears the roar of the Impala's engine, and closes his eyes in defeat as it comes into view and pulls up right outside the store. Cas watches through the crack in his eyelids as Gabriel turns, as he takes in Dean's baby in all her pride and glory, as he watches the way the car door opens and Dean himself steps out in a leather jacket and boots –

"Dean Winchester?" Gabriel's tone of voice makes Cas' eyes snap open wide. His brother is staring at him. "You're dating _Dean Winchester_? LARPing addict, tattooed, plaid-wearing, Metallica-loving _Dean Winchester_?"

Cas tries to process this. He vaguely remembers Charlie mentioning how they knew Gabe yesterday, but he'd been too caught up in the feel of Dean's lips on his to put much stock in her words. He'd thought she just meant as acquaintances, anyway, but Gabe talks as if he legitimately _knows _Dean.

So confused is his mind at the moment, all he really latches onto in Gabriel's tirade is one thing: "Dean's tattooed?"

Gabriel lets out an incredulous laugh. "He's Dean fucking Winchester, of course he's tattooed, on his –"

At that moment, the bell over the door trills again, and the Novak brothers turn as one to see Dean hovering awkwardly in the doorway, his oceanic eyes flicking from Cas to Gabe and back.

"Um," he begins, visibly steeling himself as he realises who Gabriel is. The latter interrupts him.

"Dean-o! Long time, no see?" Gabe slides his Ray-Bans back on and Cas fights the urge to kick him. He doesn't know what to do; he has no idea what the dynamic between the other two is and he doesn't know how to stop whatever it is that's happening.

"Hi, Gabriel," Dean says with a grimace that he obviously means as a smile. "Thought you were on vacation." An _and I thought you wouldn't be here so fuck off _is implied. Gabriel's grin only widens.

"I was. But now I'm not. Cas here was just telling me about your little date tonight, isn't that right, Cas?"

"I wasn't –"

"_So_," Gabriel continues, completely overriding Cas' complaints. "When did you two lovebirds meet?"

Dean looks at Cas: _help me _his eyes say. "Yesterday, actually," he answers aloud. "Charlie and I were getting costumes, and Cas was here instead of you, so."

Gabe folds his arms. Cas tries to sidestep around him but can't get past without having to dive over the fairy wands and wings that are on sale. He looks back at Dean helplessly: _I'm so sorry_.

"Never would've pegged you for my brother's type," Gabriel is saying, a whole head shorter than Dean but somehow still managing to be intimidating.

"Well, you didn't peg me as gay in the first place, did you?" Dean answers warily, and again, Cas wishes he knew the history of these two. Gabriel had certainly never mentioned Dean Winchester before this, and Charlie had explicitly said that she was the only one who was _sort-of friends _with Gabe.

"Well, I've learned from that," Gabe responds easily. "Books and covers and all that. How's that brother of yours going?"

Immediately, Dean stiffens. "Sam's fine," he hedges, shooting Cas another look: _get me outta here, ASAP. _"Going to Stanford next year, actually. Pre-law." Even under these circumstances, Cas can hear the unbidden note of pride in Dean's voice as he speaks of his presumably younger brother.

"How wonderful. Tell him I said hi, won't you?" Cas knows Gabe is probably batting his eyelashes behind his sunglasses. He clears his throat, desperate to diffuse the weird tension between his brother and his date, desperate just to get out of the stifling interior of the store.

"We have a reservation," Cas lies as Dean and Gabriel both look over at him. "And we really shouldn't be late, Gabriel. So –"

"I know, I know," Gabe sighs melodramatically. "We'll continue this scintillating conversation another time, yes?" He steps aside to let Cas walk past. "Don't stay out past curfew," he calls as the two of them move towards the door. "Au revoir, Castiel. Ciao, Dean."

The bell rings like a godsend as first Dean leaves, then Cas. The door shuts behind them, and as Cas can't see Gabriel through the window from where he is standing, they're pretty much alone. He looks up at Dean nervously.

"I'm so sorry about that, I swear, Gabe's just –"

Dean doesn't seem to hear him, just pulls Cas forward by the lapels of his trenchcoat and brushes their lips together. Cas sighs into the kiss, grateful Dean still wants him. "I know Gabe," Dean murmurs into Cas' ear. "And he doesn't bother me, I swear." He pulls away, smiling down at Cas.

"How do you know him?"

Dean sighs as they make their way towards the Impala. He holds open Cas' door and waits for him to climb in before shutting it and going around to the driver's side. Once he's behind the wheel, all the tension seems to drain from his muscles. Instinctively, Cas relaxes along with him.

"I'll tell you some other time, Cas, promise," Dean says finally, giving Cas a small smile that says _it's okay, no worries_. "Tonight, I just want to get to know _you_."

Cas grins at that, which becomes even wider as the engine roars to life beneath him and they pull away from the kerb. "Thank you," he tells Dean, because honestly, anyone who can put up with Gabriel must be an angel in disguise. Dean doesn't answer; just nods, turns on the radio to _Stairway to Heaven_, and reaches over with his right hand to squeeze Cas' fingers tight. For now, that's enough, and Cas settles back into the leather, because maybe, maybe, tonight won't turn out to be so bad after all.

* * *

**Author's Note:** As promised, another installment in this 'verse. Just thought I'd post it as a second chapter to make things easier. Will probably write more, though don't expect it before Christmas. Enjoy, and have a good holiday season!


End file.
